Oklahoma governor has to commute sentences of illegals to deport them
Here is an odd twist. The way that it works in Oklahoma is that to get rid of the criminal aliens in the Oklahoma prison sentence, they have to be commuted. This will mean that each of the prisoners will have to be reviewed, as Gov Kevin Stitt does not want to have victims and their families feel like they are not getting justice. There is also the issue of the ones that have been discharged already have to be found, which will take time. What it all shows is that Oklahoma is cooperating with the federal government publicly, but just needing to deal with laws that are in place, unlike the criminals they are having to get rid of.
Now, the Oklahoma prison system does not have that many criminal aliens in comparison to say just one neighborhood in a major city, but they still have them. According to Oklahoma Watch (https://oklahomawatch.org/2024/12/17/are-undocumented-immigrants-filling-oklahoma-prisons/), there are only roughly 500 criminal aliens in there, so this doesn’t make major waves, but it helps. At least there are some politicians in this nation working to protect their citizens.
Deportation Issues
Here, via the Oklahoma Voice, is the situation.
A push to deport undocumented immigrants serving time in Oklahoma prisons doesn’t mean that they won’t be required to serve out their sentences or will escape justice.
Gov. Kevin Stitt said he will review the cases of undocumented immigrants serving time in Oklahoma correctional facilities individually before deciding whether to commute any sentences so that they can be deported.
The Republican governor made the remarks Wednesday when asked how he was planning to balance victim rights and public safety with his plan to save taxpayers money by deporting undocumented criminals serving time in Oklahoma prisons.
“We’re not going to let bad people out just to make a political statement,” Stitt said. “But I also think about the tens of billions of dollars that Oklahoma taxpayers are spending to be incarcerating people that really shouldn’t be in our state anyway.”
He said the Department of Corrections has over 500 undocumented immigrants in custody.
Stitt tapped Tim Tipton, Oklahoma’s commissioner of public safety, in November to develop and launch Operation Guardian. The program aims to deport undocumented inmates incarcerated in Oklahoma prisons in coordination with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Trump administration’s mass deportation mandate.
But before anyone in state custody can be deported, Stitt must commute their sentence.
Stitt said he will consider the victims and their families to balance justice with deportation. He said he’ll look at things like country of origin, amount of time served and the type of offense to determine if justice has been served and if a commutation is warranted.
“There are people that are at the end of their sentence and they’re about to get out,” he said. “And historically, over the last four years, when we turned them over to ICE coming out, they were just back in the communities.”
Tipton said in an interview with Oklahoma Voice this week that he’s been talking with the Trump administration and visited with the country’s new “border czar” Tom Homan this past week. Oklahoma officials will be “doing our part as a state to make sure that the immigration laws are upheld,” he said.
The state will also need to work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to find and deport undocumented immigrants that have been recently released from correctional facilities, Tipton said.
What do you think?
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